It’s called naloxone, a medication that when used properly can help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. It will soon be available, alongside epi-pens, at post-secondary schools across the Limestone District School Board (LDSB.)
“Training will be occurring in the next couple of weeks with individual school sites and once the training is up and running the Narcan (the brand name for naloxone) would be at the secondary school,” said Scot Gillam, the supervising principal of Safe & Caring Schools for LDSB.
Trustees with the board, which spans over 7,000 kilometres in Eastern Ontario, voted in favour of stocking the opioid antidote. Educators say it’s a preventative measure after a student in Ottawa died earlier this year from a drug overdose on Valentine’s Day.
“We’re really not seeing a lot of drug overdoses in the schools that would lead to us using Narcan. This is more of a preventative measure,” said Gillam.
One that is proven to save lives, according to Kingston’s Street Health Centre (KSHC), the antidote has been administered more than 170 times since it was rolled out in September of 2015.
“I hope we start talking about drugs in a different way. About why people use them and become more trauma-informed, to be honest,” explains Travis Mitchell, a community liaison with the organization.
The board has been holding information sessions at high schools across the district. The program is being rolled out at ten educational institutions.
In the meantime, the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board are also working on an implementation process for naloxone kits.